Felix: Cat 5 Landfall Bracing for Disaater

SAN PEDRO SULA, Honduras --

Hurricane Felix clung to much of its potentially catastrophic power
Monday night as it roared toward the coastal and mountain villages of
Nicaragua, Honduras and neighboring nations.

Likely time of impact: around 6 a.m. EDT today.

Likely site of impact: on or near the Nicaragan-Honduran border, an
isolated, swampy area known as the ''Mosquito Coast,'' where thousands
of indigenous people had no way out.

Likely path after impact: passing near a chain of Honduran tourist
islands and through a vast, impoverished region serially traumatized by
hurricanes and the death and destruction they deliver.

''What is worth more, staying to protect a refrigerator or
television set or getting out and saving your own lives?'' Carlos
Gonzalez, San Pedro Sula's emergency operations chief, asked Hondurans
during a radio address as towering waves began crashing ashore.

Nine years ago, Hurricane Mitch claimed as many as 13,000 lives in Honduras. In 1974, Hurricane Fifi killed 5,000 Hondurans.

Each storm is different, and Felix, which weakened slightly as it
approached land Monday night, might prove less deadly. But there was no
doubt it posed a grave threat -- and not just to the people directly in
the path of its core.

The storm was growing in reach, and nearly all of Central America will feel its rain and some of its wind.

Gonzalez and other regional officials pleaded with people in
Honduras, Nicaragua, Belize and Guatemala -- especially tourists and
others on Honduras' nine offshore islands -- to evacuate low-lying
areas and otherwise prepare for disaster.

''We are a target for this storm,'' said Dale Jackson, mayor of
Coxen Hole, the largest town on Honduras' resort island of Roatán. ``It
is coming right at us.''

The U.S. Army mobilized a CH-47 Chinook helicopter to pull 19 U.S.
citizens from Roatán and evacuate them to the coastal city of La Ceiba.
Thousands of other people left the region on commercial flights,
Honduran military planes and ferries.

Hotels and the airport in San Pedro Sula, a city in Felix's path but
about 40 miles inland, swelled with tourists and others evacuating
Roatán.

''Today was such a beautiful, sunny day that you'd never know what
is coming,'' said Lorena Nuñes, 38, who lives on the island with her
husband and four children. ``We are all afraid of what is going to
happen now.''

In a few cases, panic began setting in, with some Hondurans rushing
from shelter to shelter only to find them full and closed to new
arrivals. Food and gasoline shortages cascaded from city to city,
region to region.

Along the Mosquito Coast, known locally as La Mosquitia, tens of
thousands of indigenous people live in wooden shacks, and their primary
mode of transportation is canoe.

Shelters were few, and most of those people will have to find their own way to safety.

`WE ARE WORRIED'

''We are worried,'' said the Rev. Enrique Alagarda, who leads a
Catholic congregation in Puerto Lempira. ``In La Mosquitia, we don't
have the capability to evacuate all the people that need to be
evacuated nor do we have enough shelter for them if we could.

''A very few people have begun arriving here at Puerto Lempira, but
they came only from nearby villages,'' he said. ``We hope the first
boat trips from the coastal villages might start arriving soon, but we
haven't seen any of them yet.''

In neighboring Belize, officials declared a state of emergency,
mobilizing police and the military to help thousands of residents
evacuate. Hurricane shelters opened at midday. Schools were ordered
closed.

Southern Belize, the part of that English-speaking country most
endangered, has at least 80,000 residents, and it contains many citrus
groves and banana plantations.

Last month, Hurricane Dean grazed the northern part of Belize, destroying virtually all of the country's papaya plantations.

Still, it was Honduras, one of Central America's poorest, least
developed and most hurricane-vulnerable nations, that stood most at
risk.

Many thousands of people were told to seek shelter, and tourists
vacationing on the islands and along coastal areas desperately sought
flights home or at least inland.

''It was very difficult because there were so few planes and so many
people,'' said Carlos Chicas, a local guide who was waiting at San
Pedro Sula's airport for another wave of evacuees.

THE PREDICTIONS

''We were devastated after Mitch, because we lost 90 percent of our
business,'' said Chicas, 52. ``We are really worried about what's going
to happen this time.''

Here is what forecasters said would happen this time:

Felix's heavy squalls would arrive shortly after midnight.

Its core -- surrounded by an eye wall of 145-mph winds -- would
reach land this morning in the swamps that form the border between
Honduras and Nicaragua.

Then, it or its rainy remnants would roll through eastern and
northern Honduras before crossing into Belize, Guatemala and Mexico.

Some of those areas -- mountainous and remote -- are extremely vulnerable to flash floods and mudslides.

Others -- islands and narrow coastal plains -- are susceptible to storm surge.

Felix's storm surge could top 18 feet.

In 1974, Hurricane Fifi took a similar path, swamping the region
with 24 inches of rain. Floods and mammoth mudslides devastated
mountainside villages and killed about 5,000 Hondurans.

In 1998, Hurricane Mitch stalled near and over Honduras for days,
again producing floods and mudslides that killed an unknown number of
people, though estimates range as high as 13,000.

Felix was moving faster than those storms, which meant it likely
will not linger long enough to deliver as much rain. Forecasters said
the region should expect five to 10 inches, with a few isolated regions
receiving 20 inches.

One other modest piece of good news:

Felix's eye was wound so tightly that its hurricane-force winds
extended only 35 miles in each direction. That could limit the range of
its worst destruction.

But wherever Felix strikes land, forecasters said, it will inflict great damage.

Felix was
packing winds of up to 165 mph as it headed west, according to the U.S.
National Hurricane Center. It was projected to skirt Honduras'
coastline on Tuesday before slamming into Belize on Wednesday.

"As it stands, we're still thinking that it will be a potentially
catastrophic system in the early portions of this week, Tuesday
evening, possibly affecting Honduras and then toward the coast of
Belize," said Dave Roberts, a hurricane specialist at the center in
Miami.

A hurricane watch was issued for parts of Honduras, where
authorities were keeping a close eye on the storm but had not begun any
evacuations. Along the northern coastline, hoteliers said, tourists
were still lounging by the pool and enjoying the sun.

In Belize, residents stocked up on water and food, and nailed boards
over windows to protect against the hurricane's howling winds. Many who
lived in low-lying areas were seeking higher ground.

At 5 a.m. EDT Monday, Felix was centered about 275 miles
south-southeast of Kingston, Jamaica, and 490 miles east of Cabo
Gracias a Dios on the Nicaragua-Honduras border. It was heading west at
about 21 mph, the hurricane center said.

On Sunday, Felix toppled trees and flooded some homes on the Dutch
islands of Aruba, Curacao and Bonaire in the southern Caribbean. Heavy
rains and winds caused scattered power outages and forced thousands of
tourists to take refuge in hotels, but residents expressed relief it
did far less damage than feared as the storm's outer bands grazed the
tiny islands.

"Thankfully we didn't get a very bad storm. My dog slept peacefully
through the night," said Bonaire medical administrator Siomara
Albertus, who waited out the storm in her home with her Labrador
retriever.

Many Bonaire residents prepared for the worst, installing storm
shutters and hauling their boats ashore, but winds from Felix's outer
bands left little damage. In Curacao, several homes in a low-lying area
were flooded.

In Aruba, there was also little visible damage, although at least
one catamaran snapped off its mooring, a house was damaged by a downed
tree and power was temporarily knocked out in a northern town.

Felix is the second Atlantic hurricane of the season following last
month's Hurricane Dean, which killed at least 20 in the Caribbean and
carved out a destructive swath stretching from St. Lucia to Mexico.

On Saturday, Felix brought heavy rains and strong winds to Grenada
as a tropical storm, ripping roofs off at least two homes and
destroying a popular concert venue. No injuries were reported.

Tropical storm watches were issued for Grand Cayman and Jamaica,
which was battered by Dean on Aug. 19. A watch means tropical storm
conditions could begin affecting the island within 36 hours.

"Remember that Hurricanes Mitch, Wilma and Michelle passed far from
the island yet tropical storm force winds, waves and storm surge
damaged coastal areas," said Barbara Carby, director of the Cayman
hazard management office.

Off the Pacific coast of Mexico, meanwhile, forecasters said
Tropical Storm Henriette could strengthen to a hurricane by Monday, and
officials issued a hurricane watch for the resort-studded tip of the
Baja California peninsula, a vacation area popular with Hollywood stars
and sea fishing enthusiasts.

Henriette dumped heavy rain on western Mexico. In the resort city of
Acapulco, three people were killed when a giant boulder fell on their
home, and three more died when a landslide slammed into their house.

Rebecca Waddington, a meteorologist with the hurricane center,
warned that both Felix and Henriette could shift course and said people
in the general areas should remain alert even if they aren't in the
storms' direct paths.

"Even if the forecast is perfect, that's only forecasting where the
center of the storm is going to go," she said. "So everyone in the area
needs to be aware of it, because the storms are quite large."

She advised employees of oil platforms in the Gulf of Mexico to
monitor Felix's progress and said it could reach the area in a few
days.